[UK-CONTEST] QRO

[G0TPH at aol.com]

>>As long as the folks who don't want to play the escalation game  have their 
own sections to compete in, why not?
Good point.

>>You could just as well ban antennas over 60 feet tall, CW  faster than 
20wpm, 
or some other arbitrary limit on experimentation.
Bad  point. Experimentation not required - we already know the result.
 
May I also draw your attention to:
 
HF General Rule 3 : Entrants must abide by their licence conditions.
VHF General Rule 1b : Entrants must abide by their licence conditions and  
observe the RSGB/IARU bandplans.

Arbitrary or not, it is a clear rule to me. I am quite sure that if  you had 
a rule banning CW faster than 20wpm, then entrants would abide by it,  but we 
do seem to have a bit of a blindspot wrt power. Perhaps it is just too  hard 
to prove, too easy to do.
 
Not that I'm against QRO though. Just that I would prefer to see  a single 
section in each contest, run what power you like, and you take your QSO  score 
and divide it down by the highest power you used in the contest,  to give your 
final score. The fact that this would propel my 5 watt 80m Club  Championship 
entries way way up the rankings has very little to do  with it :-)
 
But then again, anyone who manages to hear my puny signal in all the mush  
deserves extra points anyway.
 
73,
 
Alan